[By Philipp Buluschek from Vigisense/Domosafety – March 2019 ]
In a previous blog post we presented the type of data and activities of daily living that needed to be collected in order to follow medication side effects. Beside the data that is collected, some practical aspects are also of importance. In facts, the sensor system must be able to work robustly, in very different homes, with users having reduced cognitive capacity and be installed by non-technical personal. This lead to the following additional selection criteria:
| Selection criteria | Explanation |
| Requiring no user interaction | Given that our users are older person with cognitive deficits, the sensor solution must require no interaction. This criteria de-facto rules-out any wearable sensors. |
| Unobtrusive design | In order to impact the living environment as little as possible, the sensor system must be “installed and forgotten”. Thus the choice has gone towards a system with a simple but elegant design. |
| Easy to install | All MedGUIDE pilots, as well as the future commercial roll-out will be done in existing housing without any particular preparation. It was thus important to choose a sensor solution which can easily be retrofitted on an existing home. This brings the following conditions: - Usage of battery powered devices to avoid the installation of power lines - Usage of wireless connected devices to avoid any wiring in-home - Possible to be installed by non-trained, non-technical personal, so that the care personel can perform the installation by themselves – this notably excludes any advanced 230V installation - Possibility to be removed without leaving any trace, thus excluding any screwing of device on the wall |
| Requiring no internet connectivity | The presence of an internet router/modem cannot be assumed at the person with dementia’s home. Thus, the system must be able to function without it. |
The Swiss company DomoSafety SA has been selected to provide the sensors system as their system fulfills all of the above requirments.
The following set pf sensors has been chosen:
| Passive-infrared motion sensor. This device allows the detection when a person is moving in certain locations in the home. Allows for instance the detection of bathroom usage. | |
| Door-contact sensor. This device allows to detect when the main entrance dor is opened/closed. It also used for detecting fridge usage in the kitchen. | |
| Under-mattress bed presence sensor. This allows to determine whether the user is currently on-bed or off-bed. | |
| Data-hub. This collects data wirelessly from all sensors and forwards it to the cloud-based processing backend for the determination of activities of daily living. |
This setup was tested in three countries as part of the first pilot. It has proven successful, both with regards to the collection of the required data as well as by the ease of installation and maintenance.